Between 2014 and 2026, nearly 1.6 million students will enter the state’s K-12 public school system as ninth graders. Under current graduation rates, more than 213,000 of them are predicted to drop out or delay high school graduation. Let’s break it down further. For every 100 ninth graders that start public high school in NC: 86 graduate high school within 4 years. 14 dropout or take more than 4 years to complete high school. In…

By this Sunday (May 1), most college-bound high school seniors will have made a decision about where they will be this fall. For North Carolina students staying in-state, college-bound students have a choice between 15 campuses. Where do they go? Last year, 30,700 graduating high school seniors reported that they intended to enroll at one of the state’s public 4-year universities. The fall enrollment data for the UNC system indicates that there were 27,443 recent…

The U.S. Women’s National Team advanced to its fourth World Cup final with last night’s 2-0 victory over Germany. On that team were six former players from UNC-Chapel Hill, the highest representation of any U.S. college. Four other universities—Pennsylvania State, Stanford, UCLA, and the University of Virginia—each have two players on the U.S. national team. These former Tar Heels are concentrated in the team’s defensive positions. None of the five forwards attended UNC, but two…

Nationally, college enrollment declined by nearly half a million (463,000) between 2012 and 2013, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. This was the second year in a row that saw a drop of this size. The Census Bureau noted that much of the decline took place among 2-year colleges or community colleges. Across the nation, enrollment at community colleges declined by 10% between 2012 and 2013, while 4-year colleges…

Duke v. UNC is consistently ranked the best rivalry in college basketball, and one of the greatest rivalries of all American sports: The teams are consistently among the best in their sport. The campuses are all of eight miles apart. The games are among the most hyped of each college basketball season and they rarely disappoint, and frequently determine the ACC champion. Beyond head-to-head competition, the rivalry is close on nearly every metric: fan base…